


Why is the Force Connecting Us, You and I?

by colbyfromage



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-13
Updated: 2018-06-20
Packaged: 2019-05-06 04:09:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14633786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/colbyfromage/pseuds/colbyfromage
Summary: Why, indeed, Kylo Ren. Why, indeed. Written in 1st person, from Rey's point of view, following the events of "The Last Jedi".





	1. Force Bond A

-I-

The thing I didn’t want to admit was that I wanted to see Ben Solo again.

Fortunately for me, this wasn’t something I had to deal with on a day-to-day basis. It wasn’t possible, anyway, even if maybe, perhaps, we _could_ have connected somehow through our force bond.

Sure, sometimes I felt him in my peripherals, or I thought I did. I tried to ignore him when that happened, partly due to denial, convincing myself that it was my imagination, and partly due to fear, afraid that if I were to give it my full attention then it _would_ be real, and then I’d have to deal with it. The thing was, I didn’t want to deal with it, with _him_ , because he and it and _everything_ was just so complicated, and I had enough to deal with without him in my mind.

I suppose it was silly to call him “Ben Solo”, anyway, but in my stubbornness, I continued to do so, if only in my mind. Everyone else called him “Kylo Ren”. Except his mother, whom I loved.

It was a blasted shame about the galactic radiation that got Leia Organa. After everything she did and everything she was capable of, she couldn’t shake what two unshielded minutes in space can do to a person. Even the Force couldn’t save her. At least we got her for another year; another year and a half if you count the time she was confined to the medical frigate. She hated that medical frigate, and she let us all know it, yet she still did everything she could to try to survive the radiation poisoning, hopeful to the end.

The end was an interesting time. I sat with her as often as I could, because it was at this time that she opened the wellspring of what she wanted me to know, what she wanted the galaxy to know, and especially what she wanted Ben Solo to know.

I think she knew, somehow, that I would talk to Ben again. I think, even though I never told her, that she knew to some extent of my accidental relationship with her son, that the Force had brought us together, that, somehow, he and I were fated to mix in strange ways. She said as much, near the end, when she was losing her grip on the iron general façade she’d held up for decades. At the end, he was nearly all she wanted to talk about. I obliged her, not only for her sake, but for mine. I felt as if I needed to talk about him, but I had never been able to do so, not with anyone. Until Leia.

“There is still light in him, I know it,” I told her, feeling every word I said.

“I know,” said Leia, succinct.

“I’ve seen it,” I said, saying it as much for my own sake as for hers.

“Good,” she said, “So have I.”

It was comforting to know someone else knew him and had seen what I had seen in Kylo Ren. As I sat by her bedside, or her chairside, or her tableside, I grew to know Ben Solo in a different dimension than I had previous. I knew his childhood. I knew stories of his youth that made me laugh and others that made me cry. I knew the very feelings of apprehension mixed with joy and hope that Ben gave his mother as his life began. I knew her sorrow, a sharp, stretching pain that had lingered for years on end, rising and falling like a galactic tide. I felt a sorrow, too, for her and her lost son, for him and his lost mother, and my own sorrow at watching this tragedy unfold in real time, and for the impending loss of Leia in my life. I had already lost Ben’s father, and his uncle… and then as his mother was on the cusp of death I wondered how it all would strike Ben. I wondered if he felt it, too.

I would soon know well enough what he felt, for when Leia died his presence in my peripherals was both palpable and raw. Perhaps it was my own unwillingness to ignore him… not then, I couldn’t ignore him then, not just as she’d died. That I happened to be there at the right moment was perhaps the will of the Force.

She’d passed away peacefully in her room on the medical frigate, and I was the only one there. I felt it, in the Force, her passing. I wondered at it.

I felt him before I saw him. I always felt him before I saw him. Before, I’d refused to look at him, but I couldn’t anymore. The intensity that roiled out from him through the Force was unignorable. I wouldn’t have ignored him, anyway. His mother had just died. I turned to look at him.

He was a raven, becloaked and brooding upon a fiercely minimalistic First Order chair in blackness, his pale moon of a face smoothed beneath a façade of control. Despite his control, there were signs of wear. He looked tired. His eyes were rimmed with red. He saw me look at him and it disarmed him, forming cracks in his veneer. I knew he was stricken with grief.

“Ben,” I said.

I watched him draw a breath and let it out, all while gazing at me.

“Rey,” he replied, as if it were a shorthand greeting.

I glanced at his mother, then back at him.

“I’m… sorry,” I offered, knowing it wasn’t enough.

He looked away.

“Ben,” I insisted.

“What?” he asked, his temper short.

I thought about the stories Leia had told me about Ben as a child, and it made me sad. It made me grieve for Ben Solo, the innocent.

I stood up and he glanced up at me from where he sat, wary of my movement.

“She loved you,” I said.

He ignored me, turning aside.

“She talked of almost nothing but you towards the end,” I said.

“I cannot believe you,” he said.

“It’s true,” I said, and I moved closer to him.

“What do you want?” he asked, casting a bitter gaze up at me.

How tightly his shell was wound about him! I knew, however, because I could feel; he suffered. I wondered how much he’d suffered in these past eighteen months. It pressed outward, out of him, in waves of the Force.

I reached out with the intent to touch his shoulder, but he drew back.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he asked.

“Shut up,” I said, and I touched him, and his breath caught at once.

I felt the tactile feel of his tunic beneath my hand, quilted, embroidered with threads of gold, and underneath, the solid shoulder, the beginnings of blade and clavicle, the tightening of anxiety and tendon, and under deeper still, the essence of _him_. His breath and heartbeat pulsed through my fingers and the Force wound through us, mixing, blending, rewarding, pleased.

“Ben,” I heard myself say, just above a whisper.

He glanced at my hand and I felt his breath puff against my skin. Then, he looked up at me. The tightness of his countenance released, and he surrendered, perhaps beguiled by the Force. Gone was the bitter glass from his eyes. His gaze was open, completely open.

“I’m sorry,” I said again, this time to Ben Solo, who was listening, and I felt at once the crushing weight of Leia Organa being gone from my life and the Resistance. Tears stung at my eyes and I turned my head aside.

Though I was unable to see through my momentary tears, I felt his hand, his rough, reaching, tender hand over mine, against mine, grasping mine, roughly, clumsily, trying to communicate but numb and unfamiliar with this sort of use.

Spilling down over my cheeks, my tears were relieved, and my sight returned. At once I looked to Ben, whose face had a telling trail of wet, and a trembling caution, an unsure, jagged composure held together by the barest strings.

I claimed the last two steps between us and embraced him, enveloping him with a nurturing I wasn’t sure I possessed until it came over me, crushing his forehead to my sternum, holding his shoulders, pushing a hand, my fingers, into his hair.

He stiffened at first, and then something broke inside of him. His arms twisted around my waist and he held me, falling against me like a great weight finally released, his shoulders bowed in defeat.

I heard the smallest of noises escape him, yet that sound spoke volumes of his grief. My hands fell through and through his hair, the plainest of comfort-strokes, but it was the best I knew how to do.

Our state was one of mutual cease-fire in the face of shared sorrow.

It was only after the passing of some minutes that I began to wonder how we could physically manifest to each other with such entirety. It seemed effortless for us both, yet merely a projection of similar proportions was enough to kill Luke Skywalker.

Ben seemed hesitant to face me, to go to the in-between space of neither adversaries nor embracing. It did, perhaps, feel awkward. I brushed his hair from his face and attempted to draw back, and he released me some, but with regret coursing through his arms and hands. I gently coaxed his chin upward, so I could meet his gaze. His gaze came to mine in a jagged line, not straight, not directly, not until the last moment.

“You…” he said, and I sensed and felt and heard bitterness rush back into him, held at bay by our embrace, coloring him sharp and cruel, “You cut me off eighteen months ago.”

“You chose to stay with the First Order,” I said, perhaps equally cruel, but feeling justified.

“I did nothing of the sort,” he said, his voice low and resentful.

I couldn’t believe he’d say that, as untrue as it was.

“That is exactly what you did,” I said.

He stood at once, and his disagreement was clear in his stance, in how he faced me. It was the same as when we fought through the Force for his, my, _our_ lightsaber. The one we’d broken in two. The one I cobbled back together into a two-edged staff.

“It is you who made a choice that day,” he seethed. “ _You_ chose to stay with the Resistance. I wanted to end all this, but you refused.”

“How is it you believe you could have ended all this?” I asked, amazed at his delusion, and waving a hand in the direction of the many wars amongst our stars.

“We could have done _anything_ ,” he said, his glare boring a hole through the blind optimism in his words.

I stared at him.

Unable to form a response, I turned away, shaking my head in disbelief.

“You know it to be true,” he said.

“I do not,” I said, sharp, fixing him with a gaze, trying to pretend something wasn’t nagging at me, that maybe, just maybe, there was some truth to his words. Or a lot of truth. It was too exciting of a prospect for me to handle at the time. I was afraid, when it came right down to it, afraid I would believe him and then be proven wrong. I couldn’t handle the loss.

He merely returned my gaze then, and silently reclined upon his chair, as if ceding the day, but only the day. I knew he would be back, and with a vengeance, trying to convince me of things of which I wasn’t ready to be convinced. I didn’t want him to go. I wondered if the force-bond would end, I wondered when it would end, I felt a prickling across the nape of my neck in anxiety as I realized I didn’t want it to end, I didn’t want him to go.

I drew a small breath to speak.

“What are you going to do now?” I asked him. It was almost conversational, and that seemed wrong, but I wanted him to stay.

He glanced aside as if thinking how to respond.

“Mourn, I suppose,” he replied, his eyes distant, glancing at things I couldn’t see. Parts of the First Order’s headquarters, I assumed. Then he added, “Alone.”

He didn’t look embittered by the prospect; he seemed accustomed to it. My heart wanted to break at once, and he must have sensed it because his eyes shifted, tight, to me, almost like a warning, but I ignored his glance.

“Ben,” I said, as I kept saying, and I came near him again. “You’re not alone.”

“I have been,” he replied.

Then I felt guilt. I’d left him alone, after we’d told each other neither of us would be alone anymore. Yet, indignance rose in me, sharp, sudden, raw.

“What should I have done after you tried to murder everyone I love?” I demanded.

He stood again, forcing me to look up at him.

“You saved the Resistance,” he said to me.

“Yes, I did,” I replied.

“By doing so, you saved this war,” he said. “Now, because of you, it continues.”

I found myself blinking, trying to think through what he’d said.

His gaze turned a little wry.

“Was it worth it?” he asked, his voice soft, yet intent. “Was it worth everyone who will die in the future as a result? Is this what you envisioned?”

I looked away from him, confused by his questioning, not sure what he was trying to get at.

“Rey,” he said, his voice still soft, drawing me back into his gaze.

“What?” I asked, though my voice sounded softer than I’d intended.

He stepped closer, and I could smell him, and his scent was sharp and clean and heady. Like machinery and leather and warmth and cold all together in an unstable alliance. I remembered it from the throne room of Snoke, and the scent brought back more of my senses from that time.

“Do you believe me that I wanted to end all of this?” he asked me.

“Yes,” I said, “You’ve never lied to me.”

“Then why did you go?” he asked.

“Because I couldn’t let them die,” I replied, almost pleading that he understand. “How could I? How could I have lived with myself if I had?”

I felt tears sting my eyes at the impossibility of the situation.

He glanced over my face and looked miserable.

“There’s nothing else I could have done,” I said, as a tear spilled down my cheek. “As far as I’m concerned, there was no choice to be made.”

He watched the tear fall from my chin.

“But you had the power to stop it,” I accused, threatened by more tears.

“I did not,” he said.

“Why not?” I said, as my vision blurred in grief.

“I cannot stop a juggernaut like the First Order alone,” his voice said.

I covered my face with my hands. There was silence, a waiting, moments pressed into long strands of time, and then I felt his hand touch me on the wrist, light, scarce, hesitant and unsure.

I was so relieved by his touch, I forgot to be angry. My hands fell away from my face as he claimed my wrist, grasping it.

“Don’t go,” I said, nonsensically.

“How can I decide that?” he asked, reclaiming my gaze, as well.

“I… just don’t want you to,” I said.

“I don’t want to, either,” he replied.

“Ben,” I breathed.

He pulled me at once, by the wrist, into his arms, and I was crushed into his steely machinery, his nuclear fission, his cold-hot juxtapose.

Resist, I did not.

It could be said, possibly, that I melted like a snowball in the Jakku sun, or that I fell apart like matter in a Death Star, or that my mind left me and I became one with the Force that was Us.

There was nothing, despite our impossible circumstances, that could have felt better in that moment than being clung to, endeared to, desperate for, and wholly embraced by Ben Solo or Kylo Ren or both or the oscillation between the two. I clung back, as if an immense gravity had thrown us together and our only relief could be found in surrender.

How darkly humorous it was that the Force chose then to end our contact. He faded from my arms and the lack of him was acute. It bordered on physical pain. I wanted him back. _I wanted him back._

I stood for long moments, my shattered breaths the only sound, staring at the wall behind where he once stood, yet never stood, lightyears away.

I was alone, and nearby, Leia Organa was dead.

The door opened.

It was Poe Dameron, the shameless flirt.

There was no flirt in him now, for he saw my wrecked state and he saw General Organa, motionless on her bed.

“Oh, no,” said Poe, his face a block of compassion.

I sniffed and pushed a tear from my cheek, moving towards Leia’s body.

“She passed away a few minutes ago,” I said.

“Oh, no,” breathed Poe, sorry, sad, his hand outstretched to touch her unfeeling arm, his head falling to bow.

He knows how to grieve properly, was what I thought in that moment, wondering if I would ever manage to know how to do anything properly.

We stayed there for long minutes, silent sentinels grieving her passing, as stars passed above, unaware of our microscopic details.

-o-


	2. Force Bond B

-II-

The next day, I once again felt him before I saw him.

“How can we control this?” I heard his voice say behind me.

Turning, I saw him standing, submerged in an immense black cloak which flowed out from him in all directions. So elaborate was his cloak that I had to ignore his question and ask mine instead.

“What are you doing?” I asked, glancing over him.

“Ceremonial attire,” he said, as if that were normal.

“You look… uncomfortable,” I said, fighting a tiny smile that threatened to show itself.

He might have shrugged one shoulder. I couldn’t tell. It didn’t seem to matter to him, in fact, it almost seemed vaguely tiresome and rote to have to dress so elaborately.

“Is something happening?” I asked.

“Nothing unusual,” he said.

“But what is it?” I asked, my curiosity piqued.

His glance flashed at me, and he said: “We’ve brought another system under our empire, and I am to be presented to the people.”

I glanced over him since what he was saying and how he was saying it felt strange, somehow.

“You mean you’ve conquered another people, forcing them to become your subjects,” I said with a hint of seethe.

“No,” he said immediately, “that isn’t what I said, nor is it what I meant.”

He watched me with a patience I didn’t expect. After a moment he drew a breath.

“They joined us willingly,” he clarified.  

I stared at him. His gaze tinged with amusement.

“Is that surprising to you?” he asked me.

“Yes,” I said, for lack of anything better to say.

“Is it also surprising to you that more people find life better under the rule of the First Order than not?” he asked.

I glanced away.

“It looks as if it is,” he said.

“I don’t believe you,” I said.

“When have I lied to you?” he asked me, and I had to look at him.

He stood still, not having moved at all since the beginning of our bond. I crossed the space between us at once, coming close enough for his cloak to brush my legs as I looked up at him. I could see I’d invaded his personal space; I’d made him imbalanced, if only temporarily.

“Do you expect me to believe the Supreme Leader who lost his mind on the battlefield at Crait is now nothing but the very model of benevolent rule in the galaxy?” I asked.

He recovered himself and I felt his old rage creep in.

“I had my reasons on Crait,” he said, keeping everything close to the chest, as usual.

“Tell me what they were,” I demanded.

 His eyes travelled over my face.

“No,” he said, but gently, strangely.

My gaze fell to his mouth of its own accord, waiting for more words, more explanation, but nothing more came. When I looked to his eyes again, they were soft, and filled with a longing I’d only seen once.

My breath caught.

“Rey,” he said, breathed, perfectly balanced like a counterpoint to my gasp.

I looked down over him, over his ceremonial body, so heavily shrouded in the trappings of royalty. Sometimes he felt so different, so _opposite_ from me that I felt unsure exactly _what_ he was.

He had still not moved at all. He was like a statue, nothing but a pale moon face above a gilded black frame. He seemed resigned, somehow.

“I wonder how long this connection will last,” I said.

“Forever, perhaps,” he replied.

I blinked at him.

“Oh,” he said, realizing something. “You mean this single instance.”

I hadn’t yet, however, considered the fact that our strange bond might last forever between us.

“Why would it?” I asked, then clarifying: “Last forever, I mean?”

“Why wouldn’t it?” he asked.

“Perhaps we can sever it,” I said, thinking of solutions.

Something flashed in his eyes.

“Do you want to?” he asked.

I almost said _Why wouldn’t I?_ but I realized I would have to argue with my own question. There was something in it that satisfied me, that brought an end to the loneliness that I’d lived with my whole life. Even now I still felt loneliness, even with friends, and with people who needed me… _how did I still feel loneliness?_ I looked back up at him for answers.

Whenever I looked at him I always felt sad. He was like a puzzle piece that could have fit perfectly, but stubbornly refused to do so. Sometimes I felt as if the way he looked at me was so soft, so gentle, and so honestly curious, that I couldn’t get enough of it. I wanted him to always look at me that way. Until I found out more about our bond, and until I found out more about _him_ , I didn’t want to sever the bond. I wasn’t even close to wanting to sever it. Regardless, I wasn’t sure I, or we, could.

I glanced down, not wanting to tell too much with my reply.

“Not yet,” I said carefully.

He moved, I sensed it in my peripherals. I felt his cloak shift around my legs, and I felt the increased warmth of his closer proximity. His scent fell across me.

“When is the funeral?” was what he asked.

“Tomorrow,” I replied, and then I glanced up to him. “Will you come?”

“Who’s to say?” he asked, unable to control the whims of the Force.

“Do you want to?” I asked, my voice smaller.

He looked down on me a moment.

“I do,” he replied, but it was tight, clipped, as if his emotions were being restrained.

I was glad, anyway.

“How much longer do you have before you have to go be… presented?” I asked, glancing over his shoulder at whomever might fetch him for his speech, or royal waving, or whatever it was presentations entailed.

“Probably half of an hour,” he said, though his eyes never left me.

“Do you like these formal occasions?” I asked him, feeling curious.

“They’re necessary,” he replied, with something akin to a shrug beneath his heavy robes. “I neither like them nor dislike them.”

His world was nothing like mine.

“How strange,” I remarked.

“It isn’t strange,” he said.

“But it is,” I said. “We do nothing like that.”

“Yes,” he said, glancing down over me, “the Resistance is poorly run.”

“I beg your pardon,” I said.

“Do you wonder why planets and systems are willingly joining the First Order?” he asked me. “Why they are willingly turning away from the Resistance?”

“They are not,” I objected.

“They are,” he replied.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said. “The reports we get are-,”

“Fabricated,” he said.

“Impossible!” I said.

“I will not argue with you whether or not something that we both know is within the realm of possibility is ‘impossible’,” he said.

“And it’s also possible that _your_ reports aren’t accurate, either!” I replied.

“That is, indeed, possible,” he admitted. “However, I think it would be extremely difficult to fabricate an entire planet’s welcome.”

I looked over his face.

“That’s true,” I said, but then held up a finger, “But.”

“Yes?” he inquired.

“I have also seen Resistance planets wholly welcome _us_ ,” I said.

He studied me for a moment.

“I wonder,” he began, and then his weight shifted; I felt the cloak brush against my legs, the fabric, thick, solid, painstakingly woven, touched my hand. “Have you seen those planets again? After some time has passed? After the grim reality of the Resistance has set in?”

My eyes fell away from him as I realized I hadn’t been back to any except the main planets on which the Resistance was headquartered. I shook my head.

“That doesn’t mean-,” I started.

“No, it doesn’t,” he said. “Of course, anything is in the realm of possibility.”

“Stop trying to make me doubt my cause,” I said.

“Isn’t this what we do?” he asked me, and I could almost hear something akin to humor in his voice.

“It shouldn’t be what we do,” I said, perhaps a tinge petulant, as I pinched the fabric of his cloak between my fingers.

“What should we do?” he asked me.

I glanced up at him and found him gazing at me with a soft intensity. My face started to feel warm, and I looked away.

“We should get along,” I said.

“How can we do that?” he asked.

“We have to agree on something, first,” I said, hazarding a glance at him again.

“What would you like to agree on?” he asked.

“Everything,” I replied.

“Impossible,” he rejoined.

“Are you sure?” I asked him.

“Never,” he admitted.

I almost, nearly huffed a laugh, but I didn’t.

“But you must admit that’s a high bar to set,” he said, “considering our track record.”

He almost seemed comfortable talking to me, just now, even in his dense royal trappings. I wondered at it, while trying to preserve it, like watching a fragile bubble and trying to keep it from popping.

“We can start with one,” I said. “One thing.”

“Very well,” he said. “Upon what shall we agree?”

I smiled at him a little.

“That your cloak is ridiculous,” I said.

“These?” he said, surprised. “But these are my formal imperial robes. What’s ridiculous about them?”

“They’re just so,” I began, and I brought my hands up between us to gesture, but as it was, we were standing so close my hands came to rest on the embroidery over his chest. “So… _much_?”

He was mild beneath my touch. He neither moved into it nor dissuaded it.

“Like I said,” he replied, “they are necessary.”

“Aren’t you the Supreme Leader?” I asked. “Can’t you proclaim your official costume be more modest?”

“I could,” he said, “but, Rey…”

The way he said my name made me involuntarily swallow.

“Do you not yet know that the people adore pageantry?” he asked, sincere.

“Some people, perhaps,” I said, resistant to the end.

“It is common,” he informed me.

“Where even _are_ your hands?” I demanded, glancing over the rich folds.

“Where they always are,” he replied.

At once, his hands, gloved in black leather, appeared from sleeves or slits or undefined openings which I had not previously detected, and covered my own upon his chest.

I found my breath had left me, for he was gentle.

I knew he was gazing at me; that was what he always did, but I had trouble in lifting my gaze to meet his.

“Rey,” I heard him say.

“Yes?” I responded, my voice coming out fainter than I’d expected. I watched his hands over mine and the embroidery which expanded in intricate designs across his chest.

“It doesn’t appear that we can agree on that subject,” he said, his voice soft, belying the humor in his words.

I did laugh then, gently, both at what he’d said, and at the ridiculous nature of our incessantly irreconcilable differences.

I looked up at him and he was drinking in the smile on my face; he seemed mesmerized by it. I wondered how often he saw smiles directed at him, and I concluded that it probably wasn’t very often. His hands clenched mine.

“Let’s find something else,” I said to him, still smiling.

He looked willing to try anything at all.

“You pick this time,” I offered.

He blinked, surprised, and then suddenly considering. As he thought, he caressed my hands with his thumbs, and I wondered how such acute familiarity was both so easy for us and at the same time so strange and thrilling.

“Ah, yes,” he said, coming to a conclusion. “My imperial robes.”

“We’ve just been through this!” I objected in disbelief.

“Yes, we have,” he said, “But.”

“But,” I echoed, waiting for more.

“Can we agree that they are well made?” he asked me.

I laughed.

When I came back to myself, I saw a ghost of a smile had graced his face, and I found I wanted more.

With a reproving glance up at him, as he held my hands against him and watched me expectantly, I replied, “Yes, I suppose we can.”

He exhaled with relief, as if he’d been holding his breath. He lifted one finger from ours, intertwined.

“There’s one,” he said.

“One is a beginning,” I said.

“A start,” he said.

“I suppose all roads begin with a first step,” I said.

“Will it be a long road, do you think?” he asked me.

“I wonder,” I replied, thoughtful.  

He paused, glancing over my face, his hands tender against mine.

“I wonder, too,” he said, his voice soft.

I suddenly wanted to touch his face, his hair.

He glanced over his shoulder, then back to me.

“Rey,” he said, “I must… well, if our bond doesn’t end beforehand… I have to ignore you now.”

“Is it time?” I asked.

He nodded, and then he stopped my heart when he brought my hand to his lips. He seemed to have stopped his own, too. I don’t think he’d meant to do it, I think he’d done it without thinking beforehand, for he seemed as breathless and surprised as I as he let my hands fall free.

We held eye contact between us for as long as we could, until he was forced to turn and respond to someone who had come into his room.  

I watched him go, though he didn’t “go” from my perspective. Through the bond I went with him, whether I moved or not. I could hear his words, but not those of anyone else. From time to time he glanced my way, and I felt as if I were snatching at crumbs, catching his gaze and holding it, feeling the Force between us in every instance. I was absorbed by it. I wanted his eyes on me, not anyone else.

I saw his gaze go long, as if he were looking over something at a distance, and the light changed, and his hair moved in the wind, and he faded from me. He must have reached his presentation.

I watched where he had been in my sight for longer than would be normal. Then again, nothing about this was normal in any way, so how could one gauge normalcy? I let the echo of his warmth and scent and touch linger, however, for some minutes.

After a while I left, pondering the things he’d said.

Was he manipulating me?

Was he lying about the Resistance?

Or, instead, was he simply uninformed?

Worse yet, was _I_ uninformed?

What was true, and how could I find out?

I found Poe Dameron in the Resistance war room, just finishing a planning meeting with some of his generals. He seemed pleased to see me.

“Morning, gorgeous,” he said with his usual winning smile.

“Good morning,” I said, ignoring his flattery as I always did. “How’s the Resistance, today?”

“Wonderful,” he said. “What can I help you with?”

“It’s going wonderfully?” I asked.

He smiled at me.

“That’s what I said, isn’t it?” he replied, always easy, always relaxed. I rarely saw him upset, though he was capable of intense focus.

“Yes, right… thanks,” I said, “I was wondering…,”

“Hm?” he inquired as he checked the data on a nearby screen.

“If I could see some maps of the reach we’ve acquired so far in the Resistance?” I asked.

He turned to look at me with more focus than before.

“Sure,” he said, and then: “Why do you need that?”

“Just trying to keep informed,” I replied with a smile.

He glanced over me and then let out a chuckle.

“I’ll send it over tonight to your comms,” he said.

“Thanks,” I said.

“Or I could bring it to you and explain it to you,” he offered, “… maybe over dinner?”

I gave him side-eye and he put on his charming smile.

“I’m afraid I’m going to be busy with the recruits tonight,” I said.

“Surely not,” he countered.

“Sadly, yes,” I insisted.

We both knew I wasn’t going to be busy with recruits.

“Teaching the ways of the Force isn’t a simple task,” I added.

His charming smile faded.

“Ah,” he said, “Yes… _the Force_.”

The Force; the thing he’d never understand. Not like I did. Nor like… I stopped my mind right away.

“Well,” he said, “I suppose I’ll send the file to you, then.”

He seemed to lose interest and went back to checking the data on the screen.

“Okay,” I said, “See you later.”

“Sure,” he said distractedly.

I left Poe and walked out into the bright, brilliant light of day. Outside of the war room, on the fields surrounding the Resistance headquarters, were soldiers and droids and great machines and transports and ships and the bustle of training and preparations for war. There were always preparations for war. War continued in an unending round. We never knew when it would strike, but we always knew it would. Sometimes we did the striking, but even then, it was unpredictable.

I thought about Ben and the light I watched fall over him at the end of our connection and wondered where he was.

It was incredible how the Resistance didn’t stop for more than a few hours after General Organa’s death. I suppose they’d moved on a long time ago, once she became too weak to lead anymore. Now her death was just a formality everyone had been waiting to get through. At least she’d have a funeral tomorrow, and a proper good-bye. Not everyone got that.

The possibility of connecting with Ben through the Force at any time was disconcerting. I never knew when it would happen. I supposed I could always ignore him, but now I didn’t want to. I wanted to talk to him, to find out why he did the things he did, and I felt… _comfortable_ with him in a way I didn’t feel with anyone else. Yet, he, himself, was problematic in so many ways. It dug at me all the time, the desire to understand his actions.

I gazed out towards the distant mountains on the horizon until I heard a voice call me from behind. Turning, I saw one of the Force-sensitives I’d been training standing with a staff in his hand.

“Are we practicing today, Master Rey?” he asked.

I smiled at him.

“Yes,” I replied. “We are.”

-o_o-


	3. Force Bond 3

-III-

The funeral of General Leia Organa was held with as much pageantry as could be mustered by the Resistance and was held within a hastily-converted hangar space to fit everyone who wanted to attend. No one wore ceremonial robes as elaborate as Kylo Ren’s, except perhaps for Leia.

They’d put flowers in her hair, just like they said had been in her mother’s. It was beautiful and fascinating, considering the trouble Leia had experienced due to her parentage in the past. I suppose Padme Amidala was always considered to be a respectable figure, despite Anakin Skywalker.

Poe gave a stirring speech. I suppose it was meant to rouse the motivation of the Resistance and to bring glory to the cause by highlighting all that Leia had sacrificed for them, and all she had accomplished. She had truly accomplished great things.

Something nagged at me, though.

Why didn’t the wars ever end?

Why did they seem to be just as constant as they’d always been?

Why didn’t all this fighting ever change anything?

As I stared into the crowds which thronged Leia’s funeral, I wondered if she had felt like she’d accomplished what she’d set out to do. I wondered if she even knew what she wanted to accomplish, besides fighting back. I looked at Poe, at he who had taken up her mantle, and wondered what he hoped to accomplish, and how he hoped to do it.

In that instant, however, it occurred to me that it was possible this wasn’t the most efficient way to achieve peace.

And that was assuming “peace” was the goal of those around me.  

Of course, it was. It _had_ to be. How could anyone’s goal be to keep fighting?

An arm came around my shoulders and I looked to my side to see Finn was there. He must have seen my troubled look and assumed I was troubled over Leia’s death. I was, of course, but at that moment I was troubled about other things. I gave him something of a smile and he encouraged me with his own.

I drew a breath and let it out.

“And now,” said Poe, finishing, “I’d like to turn over a moment to our resident Jedi Master Rey to give us a few words about General Organa.”

I blinked, surprised, but I allowed it and approached the podium, despite anxiety.

It’s different to have all the eyes of the Resistance on you at once when you’re used to watching them look at someone else. I hoped I would say something worth listening to.

“Leia Organa was an inspiration,” I began. “She was full of wisdom, she was kind and she was also fierce. She could be cruel when necessary, but she could also be as loving as a mother.”

I went on to list the necessary partial list of the many incredible things she had accomplished, and then I stretched experimentally into the miasma in which my thoughts had been mired.

“She showed me that I don’t have to be one thing, that I can be many things, and that the heart of success is finding the balance between all the things I am. That’s what she was, and I hope that we can all remember her by striving to find that balance in ourselves.”

I watched the eyes which gazed upon me for a moment, and then I went on to finish.

“Perhaps it is through _balance_ that we will find peace,” I said. 

_Perhaps we won’t have to fight, not anymore._

I didn’t say that out loud, but I thought it. I thought it _hard._

I began to turn away and stopped, for I saw Ben Solo gazing at me from aside. I wondered how much of my speech he had heard, and I wondered how much of it he might agree with.

Remembering myself, I left the podium and assumed my position beside Finn, pretending Ben wasn’t nearby. Poe regained the spotlight to give closing thoughts.

Ben disregarded that I was ignoring him. Certainly, he knew why; I was standing in front of the entire Resistance. I couldn’t do anything. He fixed me, eager for my gaze whenever I could land upon him.

“Do you really believe that?” he asked. “About balance?”

He seemed intrigued by the idea. I could only glance at him, noticing he wore his standard black today, as usual with gloves. I wondered why anyone would wear gloves indoors, except to further cloak one’s humanity. Curiosity was in his eyes, as if the concept of balance had piqued his interest in a way he craved.

“I have contemplated it for years,” he confessed to me.

I found that interesting, for I’d always thought he leaned towards darkness. He glanced around me restlessly for a moment.

“Can’t you go somewhere else?” he asked. “Somewhere alone?”

I glanced at him as if to say, _Of course not, it’s Leia’s funeral, for crying out loud._ I’d hoped that got through clearly enough. He gave me a dry look.

“Surely you can come up with something,” he said.

I wanted to roll my eyes, yet I was intrigued. I _did_ want to talk to him, and I didn’t know how long the connection would last today.

“You’re Rey of Jakku, Holy Jedi Salvation of the Resistance,” he said, as if mocking such a thing, and I gave him a sharp glance. “I’m fairly certain if you just walked out everyone would assume you had a good reason.”

I decided to try ignoring him.

“It’s almost over, anyway isn’t it?” he asked.

I hadn’t expected him to be so disrespectful at his own mother’s funeral. Yet, it was indeed almost over. My desire to talk with him was combined with my desire to give him a piece of my mind for distracting me at this solemn time, and it overran my obligation to stay. I turned to Finn.

“I… don’t feel very well,” I murmured to my friend.

Finn looked at me with concern.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

I kind of hated being deceitful with Finn, even if it was a small thing.

“I’ll be fine,” I whispered, “I just have to go to my rooms.”

I exited as graciously as I could manage, and no one questioned my departure. Walking swiftly, I ignored Ben the whole way to my rooms, wondering and not wanting to discover if he was or wasn’t gloating.

Finally, I shut the door to my bedroom and turned on him.

“How dare you show such disrespect at your mother’s funeral!” I said.

He blinked at me, and then his eyes shifted towards something more rebellious and engaged.

“I’ve already mourned her, and I will continue to mourn her,” he said to me. “Why should I care for the trite babblings of the Resistance elite? Did they know her, or did they just think they knew her? Did they really care about her, or did they abandon her once she’d fulfilled her use to them?”  

I shook my head at him.

“How did your view of the Resistance become so cynical?” I asked.

“When it took everything I cared about from me,” he replied.

I felt shaken by his vulnerable response. I turned aside, and my righteous fury was further doused as he moved closer to me, bringing himself and his singularity within my peripherals in such a way that it beat out all else and left me wholly focused on the moment, on him, and unable to remember why I should be angry.

“Did you feel that?” he inquired, softly, after a moment.

I glanced up at him.

“Feel what?” I asked, though maybe I knew.

“I’ll do it again,” he said, stepping back several paces. I noticed an emptiness, though subtle, which remained when he did so.

He moved towards me again, and this time I focused on how it felt when he did it, and I did feel it; it was as if he and I were surrounded by fields of energy, complementary to one another, which meshed and wove together like vines across spacetime spreading into sunlight. It felt satisfying, like being wrapped in a warmed blanket after being in the cold, yet it was subtle, so subtle that I hadn’t noticed it, but I was now aware the effect had been there for, perhaps, always, like a forgotten emotion. Like nostalgia yet unfolding in real time.

“Yes,” I said in wonder, “I do feel it.”

He held up his hand, palm out, between us, and I moved, bringing my hand through the web of space-time, curved and thickened as it was around us, and met his palm with my own. With my senses heightened, I could feel the thickening of gravity around us, the pull between us, the balance which we created, somehow. It was dense, heady, atmospheric, like the plummeting, crushing atmosphere of a swirling gas giant. Where our hands touched it gained further density, greater gravity.

As our palms touched, his gloved fingertips came to rest with delicacy upon mine and I found myself acutely aware of the sensation, of his precise tenderness. I felt as if there were great power between us, yet I had no idea how it was to be used. I looked at his face and saw he was as wrapped in curiosity, as piqued, as forcibly drawn to our anomaly as I was.

His eyes flicked from our touching hands to me.  

“What is it?” I asked him.

“I don’t know,” he said, “but I felt it immediately, the moment we met.”

I blinked.

“In the forest?” I asked, feeling incredulous.

His nod was brief, slight. I suppose it made sense that he would have been more aware of things like this, since I had never been trained.

“Is that why you took me to your ship?” I asked.

“No,” he said, and then his gaze broke with hesitation. “Or perhaps yes. I don’t know. I didn’t think it was at the time, I thought I was only getting the information from you about the droid… or trying to. But.”

He drew a breath and sighed it out, glancing over me. His head shook as if he were embroiled in inner imaginings of forests and failed mind control and awakenings.

“I’m not so sure anymore,” he said. “It must have drawn me, even unconsciously, to do the things I did, the way I did them.”

I let my fingers fall like feathers through the spaces between his own, and he watched, his fingers mild and allowing. Our hands finally clenched together, fingers interlaced, our palms flush, tight, firm and intent. Our eyes found each other just after.

“I begin to wonder how autonomous I really have been, and how much of my actions have been dictated to me… by _this_ ,” he said, his voice soft, thoughtful. “How often did I think I was acting of my own free will when I was unknowingly affected by you and the Force between us?”

Our hands maintained a tight mutual hold, as if declaring the truth and reality of our bond against the skepticism of all who might question it.

“How much of my life has pulled me to this moment?” he asked. “Am I who I am, have I suffered what I have suffered, so that I could balance like this, here, now, with you?”

I felt as if I might cry, though I couldn’t exactly pinpoint why.

“Are you implying that our lives are not our own, but the will of the Force?” I asked. “That we have no free will, but are thrown about by the whims of forces greater than ourselves?”

“I don’t know what I am implying,” he said, and he moved closer, causing the combined energies around us to swirl, as if he shifted through water. I was acutely aware, now that it’d been made known to me, of every movement in the Force between us. I was aware that there was a pulling gravity between us, pulling us closer to each other, that required effort to resist. “I’m only trying to make sense of all this.”

“I believe we make choices,” I said, “and that those choices are our own.”

He gazed down upon me.

“And what else?” he inquired.

“I believe we can be guided by the Force,” I said, “but not ruled by it.”

“Then our lives are ours?” he asked me.

I nodded to him.

He released his tight hold upon my hand, extricating his fingers from mine, then, upon release, he took my hand in a gentler way and lifted it, raising it towards his lips.

He kissed my hand, soft, surprising, breath-catching, lingering.

I stifled my gasp and slipped my hand from his, reclaiming it, disallowing his advance.

“Why did you do that?” I asked, hoping my cheeks were not telling, not flushed to recognition.

“Because I am drawn to do so,” he replied simply, unrepentant.

“We are _enemies,_ ” I said.

“Are we?” he wondered.

“Yes,” I said, “of course we are.”

He watched me.

“I am the Jedi Master of the Resistance and you are the Supreme Leader of the First Order!” I said, exasperated.

There was silence, and then he broke it:

“But _are_ we enemies?” he asked.

I exhaled and searched his face.

“You haven’t once tried to kill me, today,” he said, and I thought I noticed something of a smile touch his eyes.

“That’s because,” I said, gazing about for answers, “That’s because…”

The bad part was I didn’t have any reason why. I would have been in grand trouble with my friends if they knew how much private time I had with Supreme Leader Kylo Ren in which I was definitely _not_ trying to eliminate him from existence. It would have simplified so much to remove him from power. It seemed as if I had the perfect opportunity to help the cause of the Resistance, but I never took it.

The truth was, I’d sooner stab myself than Ben Solo, so integral, so engrossing, so _fascinating_ was our connection. It was powerful. Vastly, vastly powerful. It was beautiful, and there was something in it which told me we had everything we needed. We could, perhaps, somehow, balance the Force. We could, perhaps, within my hope, stop the wars that plagued our galaxy.

I looked back to him, and he was waiting, patient as always, for me to finish working through my thoughts.

“That’s because I can’t,” I said, my voice coming out weaker than expected.

He didn’t gloat or hold it over me. He feinted, in his eyes, he held the door open for me, the one between us, with courtesy and understanding. It was too much for me and I demanded a power struggle.

I took his hand rashly and tore the glove from it, baring his skin, his naked hand, for my having. I brought it to my mouth and kissed it, feeling his hand twitch subtly and hearing a faint gasp escape him at the touch. I looked up at him, defiant that turn-about-was-fair-play, and I was taken aback by the intensity that swirled in his eyes.

“Why did you do that?” he demanded, though his hand remained surrendered to my possession.

“Because I wanted to,” I replied, defiant.

“Why did you want to?” he countered.

“I felt it,” I said.

“Felt what?” he asked.

“The Force,” I replied.

“Did the Force make you kiss me?” he asked.

“No,” I replied.

“Then why did you do it?” he asked.

I hesitated.

“Because I wanted to,” I repeated.

“Then why can’t I?” he asked. “Are we not enemies? Is this a privilege only the Resistance gets to enjoy? Why is it unequal?”

I huffed a soft laugh due to the absurdity of our present contention.

“You didn’t ask permission, and neither did I,” I said. “Therefore, we are on equal grounds.”

“We are not,” he said.

“How?” I asked.

“You have expressed displeasure towards my kiss,” he said, “indicating it is forbidden.”

“You expressed indifference towards mine,” I countered.

“That was not indifference,” he objected.

“Then what was it?” I asked.

“Try it again,” he dared, “and see.”

I felt my breath go short at his challenge. His hand and fingers were still warm and tactile within my own. I felt as if I were put on the spot, yet there was something which shot through me, like a faint thrill.

I watched him this time, as I lifted his hand to my mouth. Before my lips could touch his skin, he spoke softly:

“Feel what happens to me… through the Force.”

I became aware of my breathing and the slight labor which weighed it as I felt between us, at the entwined vines of energy and strength, force and gravity, at the unique, unmistakable signature of _him_. I felt a shift in the Force even at the brush of my breath against his fingers, an exquisite twisting, almost a torture. My lips fell against his hand and he pulsed with truth: it was everything he wanted, just then, everything, and my lips parted and he fell apart in an instant then pulled himself back together in the next, and I tasted his hand and he groaned, twisted further by energies, tortured by inaction, and when my teeth brushed his skin he inhaled sharply and tore his hand from my grasp.

Awakened, I looked up at him with surprise and saw he was withdrawn, perhaps clutching a door behind him, or a piece of furniture, for support or safety, with his breaths coming short and deep. I perceived a faint sheen of sweat on his temple.

“I-I’m sorry,” I said, “I don’t know what happened… I was just so focused on you that it just _came_.”

“Yes,” he replied, breathless and abrupt, his eyes not leaving me.

I noticed his bare hand, and so I picked up his glove from my floor. The leather was soft, well-made, and I rubbed it between my fingers.

“Ben,” I said.

“Yes?” was his immediate reply.

“I suppose it would only be fair to allow you to kiss my hand, now,” I said.

“Perhaps next time,” he said.

I glanced up at him, and he was still on edge. There was a stiffness about him, a caution, a bewilderment and a fascination, like the first time I’d fought his interrogation and won his mind.

“Very well,” I said, feeling awkward and stupid.

I held out his glove for him; he reached for it, but never made it, for he faded from me like a ghost.

His glove remained in my possession.

-O-O-O-


End file.
